SCATHING SCORPIO...

The Oracle of Bitter Truth for February 2002

What ho, little venomous vermin? How is everything in hell this week? Are you applying for a pay rise to reward you for the new and excruciatingly exquisite forms of physical and emotional torture you've recently conjured from the depths of your detestable subconscious? Or have you perhaps decided on a return to the practice of embezzlement and white-collar crime, being temporarily sated by your latest excesses. Or perhaps, with sober Saturn in the sign of Gemini and your solar eighth house, you've decided on the versatile approach by working on both fronts simultaneously. Doubtless this will be the most effective strategy since you're currently operating as a cult-leader for a budding religious concern.

As we all know, torture, graft, corruption and hidden sexual depravity are a proper basis for all truly successful religions so there really is no end to the depths you can plumb or, indeed, the heights you can climb to. After all, why stop at a cult when Godhead is calling!

However, all was not smooth sailing towards your incipient apotheosis when we left you last month. The prisoners in the basement were entering the ninth hell of dementia. The acolytes in your service were fighting over your favours in the vestry. And, vast numbers of the general public were trooping into the auditorium for the first of your public displays of the miracle of healing.

As the month of fatuous February gets underway, Chiron the wounded healer in Capricorn and your solar third house wrestles with giant Jupiter in Cancer and your solar ninth. You are struggling with powerful inner issues. If only you could get over your shyness in the matter of communication (Capricorn on the cusp of your solar third house). And, if you could only free yourself from the insidious reserve that was instilled in you by your parents and teachers alike during your eccentric upbringing (Aquarius on the cusp of your solar fourth house). Your acolytes are rioting, your prisoners are mad and your public is restless. With Mercury the messenger moving back into Capricorn, your mind is awhirl. Once again, you have disbanded a meeting and delayed proceedings.

As Venus the goddess conjoins with revolutionary Uranus, your emotions are in turmoil. If you can overcome these lifetime issues about communication and reserve, then you can work your way out of the burgeoning crisis. Can you do it, little insectoids? Can you save the day with quickness of wit and the pretense of religious zeal? Of course you can! When does the end not justify the means! And if the end is godhead for you, then any means necessary can and must be used. As Mercury and sober Saturn move forward, you gag your prisoners and threaten your battling acolytes with immediate death should there be a further outbreak of public discord. You know that you must work a miracle to recover the situation and it is in the very last words you have uttered wherein lies the key. Death! As the NEW MOON comes in the sign of Aquarius and your solar fourth house, conjoining with revolutionary Uranus, you see that you must raise the dead in order to save the day. After all, death and regeneration are the powers of your domain are they not?

As Mercury returns to Aquarius and Venus the goddess moves into Pisces and your solar fifth house, you speak to your endless chain of manacled lovers of a remarkable event to come. You yourself will take life and, in three days, you will restore it. Thus you have a threat to keep them all cowering (someone, as yet unnamed, must die) and a promise to keep them all entranced (who dies at your hands will live again). As the great Sol Invicti moves into Pisces, you parade in your finery before your adoring and fearful followers. Then, as giant Jupiter tests Mercury the messenger, word spreads of the coming miracle.

As Mercury and mystic Neptune conjoin in Aquarius, you decide the chosen one must be a member of your own family, perhaps your own first child or that cousin on your mother's side, the one with all those lunatic friends. Yes, that's the one! Thousands flock to buy tickets for the event as Venus the goddess squares underworld Pluto. Meanwhile, your accountants are working their fingers to the bone as sober Saturn tests the great Sol Invicti. The stage is set for a grand finale to this seemingly endless saga and you're hoping for third time lucky for the inaugural public meeting for the cult of Feedmibeast the First. So what could go wrong? I'll tell you, little rulers of the anus.

As the FULL MOON comes in the sign of Virgo and your solar eleventh house on the morning of this fantastic ceremony of life and death, you find your acolytes lined up before you. They are fighting once again, each one insisting that he or she should die in order to live again at the hands of the divine leader. That's you in case you'd forgotten! Oh what it is to be you, O first cousin to the spider. Do make sure to come back and see decision you make. I'll try to be awake for this one myself.